Iran’s Revolutions: Crash Course World History 226

Hi, I’m John Green and this is Crash Course
World History and today we’re talking about Iran. Oh, Mr. Green? Mr. Green? I know that country.
It’s in the Middle East. It’s with Egypt. No, Me from the Past, we’re going to talk
about Iran. Now, I used to be you so I remember when you would look at this part of the world
and you would be like, “oh yeah, that’s a thing.” And in your case that “thing” extended
more or less from I guess, like, western China to, like, uh, Poland. Then you’d make a bunch of broad generalizations
about that area and no doubt use the terms Arab and Muslim interchangeably. But as usual Me From the Past the truth resists
simplicity. So today we are going to talk about Iran and just Iran. Specifically, the
1979 Iranian Revolution. So the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its aftermath
are often seen by detractors as the first step in the creation of an isolated, fundamentalist
state that supports terrorism, and, you might be surprised to hear me say, that there is
some truth to that interpretation. That said, the way you think about the Iranian
Revolution depends a lot of which part of it you are looking at. And regardless, it’s very important because
it represents a different kind of revolution from the ones that we usually talk about. So the 1979 uprisings were aimed at getting
rid of the Pahlavi Dynasty, which sounds, like, impressive, but this dynasty had only had two
kings, Reza Shah and Mohammed Reza Shah. Before the Pahlavis, Iran was ruled by the
Qajar dynasty, and before that the Safavids. The Safavids and Qajars were responsible for
two of the most important aspects of Iran: The Safavids made Shia Islam the official
state religion in Iran, starting with Ismail I in 1501, and the Qajars gave the Muslim
clergy – the ulema – political power. So most of the world’s Muslims are Sunnis
but the Shia, or Shiites are an important sect that began very early on – around 680
CE and today form the majority of Muslims in Iran and Iraq. Now within both Sunni and Shia there are further
divisions and many sects, but we’re just going to talk about, like, the historical
difference between the two. Shia Muslims believe that Ali should’ve
been the first Caliph, Sunni Muslims think that Abu Bakr, who was the first Caliph, was
rightly chosen. Since that disagreement, there have been many
others, many doctrinal differences but what’s more important is that from the very beginning,
Shia Muslims saw themselves as the party of the oppressed standing up against the wealthy
and powerful and harkening back to the social justice standard that was set by the prophet. And this connection between religious faith
and social justice was extremely important to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and also
to previous revolutions in Iran. This is really crucial to understand because
many historians argue that the Iranian revolution represents what the journalist Christian Caryl
called an “odd fusion of Islam and late-twentieth century revolutionary politics.” But actually, in the scheme of Iranian history,
its not so odd. Because 1979 was not Iran’s first revolution.
The first major one was in 1906. It forced the ruling Qajars to accept a constitution. It created a parliament and supposedly some
limits on the king, and made Shia Islam the official state religion, but it also protected
the rights of minorities in Iran. It ultimately failed partly because the clergy
withdrew their support, partly because the shah worked very actively against it, and
maybe most importantly, because the Russians and the British worked to keep Persia weak so they
could continue to try to dominate the region. Which reminds me that most people in Iran
are not Arabs, they are Persian. And most people in Iran don’t speak Arabic,
they speak Farsi, or as we often call it in English, Persian. So after WWI European rivalries really heated
up because of the discovery of oil in the Middle East. The British established the Anglo
Iranian Oil Company – which would later come to be known as BP. They also extracted a bunch of concessions
from the Iranian government in addition to extracting lots of oil. And they helped to engineer a change in dynasty
by supporting military commander Reza Khan in his coup in February 1921. Reza Khan became Reza Shah and then he attempted
to turn Persia, which he re-named Iran in 1935, into a modern, secular, western-style
state kind of like Turkey was under Ataturk. But Reza Shah is perhaps best remembered for
his over the top dictatorial repression, which turned the clergy against him. Okay, so during World War II Reza Shah abdicated
and his young son Mohammad Reza Shah became the leader of Iran. Which he remained, mostly,
until 1979 when he definitely stopped being the leader of Iran. So after World War II, the British allowed
greater popular participation in Iran’s government. The main party to benefit from this
openness was Tudeh, the Iranian communist party. Mohammed Mosaddegh was elected prime minister
in 1951 and led the parliament to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, and that was the end
of the democratic experiment. Now most history books say that in 1953 the
British and the CIA engineered a coup to remove Mosaddegh from office. And that is quite possibly true. It is definitely
true that we tried to engineer a coup. It’s also true that Mosaddegh quit and fled
Iran following demonstrations against him. But we also know that the Shia clergy encouraged
those demonstrations. That’s a bit of a weird decision for the
Clergy, considering that Shia Islam traditionally takes a radical stance against oppression. But it’s important to remember that Mosaddegh
was supported by the Tudeh party and they were communists. Nationalization of the oil industry was one
thing, but a further shift toward communism might mean appropriation of the land that
supported the clergy, maybe even a rejection of religion altogether. So now we’ve seen two occasions where the
Shia clergy support helped facilitate change. Right, in 1906 and again in 1953. So, let’s flash ahead to 1979. The Shah
was definitely an autocrat, and he employed a ruthless secret police called the SAVAK
to stifle dissent. In 1975, the Shah abolished Iran’s two political
parties and replaced them with one party the Resurgence party. You’ll never guess who
was resurging – the Shah. There was a huge round of censorship and arrests
and torture of political prisoners signaling that autocracy was in Iran to stay. But before those events in 1975, say between
1962 and 1975, by most economic and social measures Iran saw huge improvements. In 1963, the Shah had tried to institute what
he called a White Revolution – top-down modernization led by the monarchy, and in
many ways he was successful, especially in improving industry and education. Oil revenues rose from $555 million in 1964
to $20 billion in 1976. And the Shah’s government invested a lot
of that money in infrastructure and education. The population grew and infant mortality fell.
A new professional middle class arose. But the White Revolution wasn’t universally
popular. For instance, it was opposed by one particular Shia cleric – the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. Khomeini spoke out against the White Revolution
from the religious center of Iran, Qom. One of his main complaints was that the reforms
would grant more rights to women, including the right to vote, but he also attacked the
government for, quote: “the rigging of elections and other constitutional
abuses, neglect of the poor and the sale of oil to Israel.” And in general, Khomeini felt that a king’s
power was inherently un-Islamic and that Shia tradition was to fight that power. That noted about Khomeini, the 1979 revolution
didn’t start out to create an Islamic state. At first it was a pretty typical uprising
by dissatisfied Iranians to overthrow a government that they perceived as corrupt and unresponsive
to their needs. In spite of, or arguably because of, oil-fueled
economic growth, many Iranians weren’t enjoying economic success. The universities were turning
out more graduates than there were jobs and the mechanization of agriculture had the predictable
result of displacing farmers who moved to cities. Especially the capital city of Tehran where
there weren’t nearly enough jobs for the number of people. So, I think it’s unfair to say that a majority
of the demonstrators who took to the streets in late 1978 were motivated by a fundamentalist
vision of Islam. They were dissatisfied with economic inequality and political repression
and a corrupt regime. So why do we generally remember the 1979 revolution
as having been motivated by Shia Islam. Well, Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. So the initial demonstrations did begin after
an Iranian newspaper on January 7, 1978 published an article that was critical of Khomeini.
By the way, at the time he was living in Paris. These initial demonstrations were pretty small,
but when the government police and army forces starting firing on demonstrators, killing
some of them, the protests grew. Each time marchers protested against the violent treatment
of demonstrators, the government would crack down, and their violent reaction would spur
more demonstrations. There was also a lot of criticism of the west tied up in the revolution.
According to one woman who participated: “American lifestyles had come to be imposed
as an ideal, the ultimate goal. Americanism was the model. American popular culture – books,
magazines, film – had swept over our country like a flood…We found ourselves wondering
‘Is there any room for our own culture?’” The Shah never understood why so many people
were protesting against him; he thought that they were communists, or being supported by
the British. He also thought that merely bringing prosperity would be enough to keep him in
power. It wasn’t. On January 16, 1979 he left Iran.
He eventually ended up in the U.S., which had unfortunate consequences for diplomatic
relations between the U.S. and Iran. But the point here is that the first part
of the Iranian revolution was relatively peaceful protests followed by a government crackdown,
more protests that eventually led to the collapse of the monarchy, and that looks kind of familiar,
especially if you’ve studied, like, the French or Russian or even the American Revolutions. And most historians argue these protests weren’t
about Islam, but rather, “The discontent over living conditions, pay cuts, and the
threat of unemployment fused with the general disillusionment and anger with the regime.” The government that eventually replaced the
monarchy was the second, and in many ways much more revolutionary revolution. Thanks Thought Bubble. So the new Islamic
Republic of Iran was based on Khomeini’s idea about what an Islamic government should
be, a principle he called velayat-e faqih. Mainly it was that a sharia law scholar, would
have ultimate authority, because he was more knowledgeable than anyone about law and justice. There would be a legislature and a president
and a prime minister, but any of their decisions could be overturned by the supreme ruler who
from 1979 until his death was Khomeini. Now, if democracy is only about holding elections,
then the new Iran was a democracy. I mean, Iran has elections, both for president and
for the parliament. And for the record, despite what Khomeini
might have thought in the ‘60s, women can vote in Iran and they do. They also serve
in the parliament and the president’s cabinet. And in the referendum on whether to create
an Islamic Republic of Iran, the vast majority of Iranians in a free and open vote, voted
“yes.” Now governance in Iran is extremely complicated,
too complicated for one Crash Course video. But in once sense at least, Iran is definitely
not a democracy. The ultimate authority, written into the constitution,
is not the will of the people but god, who is represented by the supreme religious leader.
And the actions of the Islamic Republic, especially in the early chaotic days of 1979 but also
many times since, don’t conform to most ideas of effective democracy. Like one of the first things that Khomeini
did to shore up his support was to create the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah
to defend the revolution against coup attempts. Although initially there were opposition parties,
their activities were curtailed by the new “revolutionary courts” that applied sharia
law in a particularly harsh fashion. Like it’s estimated that by October 1979,
several hundred people had been executed. And under the new constitution, Khomeini was
given extensive power. I mean, he could appoint the heads of the armed services, and the Revolutionary
Guard and the national TV and radio stations. He also approved the candidates for presidential
elections and appointed six of the twelve members of the Guardian Council that approved
legislation from the parliament before it became law. So structurally Iran’s government looked
kind of like other governments, but as Michael Axworthy points out it was different because,
quote, “above and beyond stood the faqih, with the power and the responsibility to intervene
directly in the name of Islam; indeed with powers greater than those given to most monarchs
in constitutional monarchies.” By 1979, Iran already had a long history of
clerical involvement in protest and dynamic change, but it also had a long history of
pushing for constitutions and liberty. The current end result is the Islamic Republic
of Iran, but it’s worth remembering that both those threads of history are still part
of Iranian life. Like we saw that in 2009 and 2010 with the
so-called Green Revolution where there were huge protests after an Iranian election. Those
protests involved young people arguing for more rights and liberties.. But they were also led
by, and encouraged by, reformist Shia clerics. In the U.S. we mostly remember the 1979 Iranian
Revolution for its burning of American flags and taking of hostages in the American Embassy. That belonged more to the second phase of
the revolution, the chaotic period when the Islamic republic was being born. Life in the Islamic Republic of Iran remains
highly repressive. I mean, for instance, Iran still executes a very high percentage of criminals. But it’s inaccurate to say that Iran is
merely a dictatorship, or that it’s merely repressive. And one of the challenges for
people in the West trying to understand Iran is that we have to disentangle the various
aspects of the revolution rather than simply relying on the images that have defined it
for us. I hope this episode can help a little. You
can find more resources in the links below. Thanks for watching. Crash Course is filmed here in the Chad and
Stacey Emigholz studio in Indianapolis and it’s made possible because of the hard worth
of all of these people. Thank you for watching and as we say in my
hometown, “don’t forget to be awesome.”

Operation Ajax? 1953? US overthrew a democracy in order to prevent Mossadegh from nationalizing oil interests? SAVAK? The US and the UK didn't "try" to engineer a coup, they paid people to claim to be communists and supporters of Mossadegh to eliminate support for him, although he was a very popular leader. This was the work of Edward Bernays, the father of UK modern propaganda. He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. There is no question the US/UK overthrew the democracy, Operation Ajax was declassified in the late 1990s.

The Shah's regime was a totalitarian puppet dictatorship imposed upon the people of Iran, much to their unhappiness. SAVAK was setup by the CIA. It was a brutal secret police that prevented the reinstatement of any other system, including democracy.

Religion is a TOOL. All Western religions are a political tool. The tool was used to kick out a vicious combination of the United States and the UK along with their puppet dictator, who was a traitor to his people.

how history proves multiMillionaires ruin the world with gopHushMoney … aka bribery (Y)history also proves that Persia is the only nation to successfully execute several corrupt multiMillionaires4bribery & why gop liarLiar mafiaDon is so hateful towards Persians

Praise to IRAN for successfully withstanding the western pressure. SHAME on AMERICA & BRITAIN for spreading terror in the beautiful land of Persia. These fake promoters of Democracy & killers of Mosaddegh shouldn't be spared. Might can't always be right. Truth will prevail.

Some small and a few big mistakes:Small one: – Between Safavi and Qajar it was anorher dynasty: Zandieh Huge ones:– It is not an assumption that the CIA and MI6 arranged the coup against Dr. Mosadeqh. Newly issued CIA documents admit it. Albright, Clinton and Obama have all apologized for it. Furthermore, the Shah didnt play a role in that coup. – Dr Mosaddeq never escaped. It was Shah who fled to Rome, where Eisenhour sent CIAs Dallas to tell him that a coup was in progress. Be prepared for and back.

You start conveniently minimizing the US CIA culpability (1953) in the de-evolution of the Iran. At least you brought petro-politics into view, the rest of the story Capitalism vs Communism and toxic religious rivalry. The current demonization of Iran being pumped into the American media has obscured these complex truths. Thank you for boiling down the history and trying to bridge the obviously difficultly to dumb down the situation for uneducated masses.

This is a serious injustice, the video doesn't focus on the main causes of the revolution and how shah oppressive dictatorship destroyed many peoples lives and families. The american involvement was to keep iran weak and to exploit Iran's resources, mainly the oil. So sad, i had so much respect for crash course. It is sad to see that they tainted the video to attack another country's culture. This shows that there still exists ignorance of the persian and arabian cultures.

Another really poorly done CrashCourse. I would have missed the CIAs involvement entirely if I coughed, it was only touched on for a few seconds before you went on to talk about the brutal Savak secret police (which were trained and created by the CIA and Israeli Mossad). Really sad to know such a great source of historical videos is teaching historical revisionism to white wash incredibly awful crimes of which the repercussions of are still playing out to this day in favor of the side that is still using the exact same evil tactics today all over the world INCLUDING Iran once again….

Don't forget; Iranian revolution was to stop America from controling Iran's gov't. So if America teies again to reverse that, it would be crushed by Iranians. No chance. Iranians don't want puppet gov't of the West; they want independence.Do you understand?

Dear "CrashCourse"… In case you're interested, here's a minor but very crucial correction:

"Sovereignty to God" where God is represented by the supreme leader is kinda wrong.The Lord is represented/expressed through HIS scripture (s). The supreme leader can quote and/or follow the scriptures but not speak of his own whims and emotions.

So if Shia' take a "radical stance against oppression" which is why they support the Palestinians, possibly why they are involved in Yemen and Syria. But if the oppressed people happen to be oppressed by those the US support then Iran is called a "sponsor of terrorism"?

a couple of notes:– you gloss over Mossadegh way too quick. He was by no means a communist. He had positive contact with the Soviet Union at the time, though this had more to do with the west's negative treatment of Iran. Mossadegh was primarily a democratically elected left-leaning prime minister who planned to oppose to the colonial reality created during the interbellum by the UK and the USA. It was also very likely that for this reason he was assasinated.– the UK and USA have accepted their role in the assasination of Mossadegh and following coup.– the Shah imposed a forced westernised ideal on a society that did not evolve or grow in the same way that the west did. The way that the Shah went about it was very forced– the regime under the shah was also quite a lot harsher than you let on. The revolution was not simply due to unemployment, opposition to forced western culture or lack of democracy, but a systematic bloody opression of the people– USA had a way worse role to play than putting a blanky over the Shah's shoulder. It was to keep control in the region and have cheap oil and prevent soviet influence over Iran.

The west missed an opportunity of a stable like democracy in Iran by not respecting the democratic choice of the Iranian people in 1953 all for oil and influence.

SHIA THINKS ALI SHOULD'VE BEEN IN THE PLACE OF PROPHET MOHAMMED PEACE BE UPON HIM….THIS HAS TO BE SAID….and this is the difference between us Sunnis and Shias….they believe that when Jibril (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) came down to the Prophet Muhammad with the Quran and Islam it was a mistake, and Ali should've been the prophet, this is a story beside other stories that are horrific….YOU should say that or correct it, what makes me so angry from some western documentary videos about eastern history, information is not correct I MEAN THE WHOLE PICTURE IS NOT EVEN THERE, AND SUNNIS WE DON'T HAVE DIFFERENT DIVISIONS real Muslims only believe in Quran and Sunnah the other divisions don't represent our faith in Allah, and because of Shia we are named Sunnis, but the real thing is WE ARE MUSLIMS NOT SUNNIS AND I USED HERE TO DIFFERENTIATE, SHIA has another religion they made by themselves other things that are prohibited, Actions that cannot be accepted by humanity….and the worst thing they do they claim they don't do these things!

Just a note. I'm hearing a high-pitched sound throughout the video. I've tried it on 3 systems (phone, car, PC). I didn't notice it on the phone, but that's possibly because of the lower quality earbuds I use. Other two I can hear it.

Noise or not, I love your videos (as a group, not specifically just yours). DFTBA

The Iranian women lost everything after of the Khomeini revolution but the follower priests of Khomeini and the mercenaries of the revolutionary guards turned out billionaires in dollars not in rials. More people were executed during the first years of the Khomeini regime than during all of the decades of government of the Shah.

I was 9 years old in 1978 when the revolution first started. I remember initially just seeing a few demonstrators on the street during bus rides to and from school. As time went on we started to notice street blockades and curfew starting. Soon we started hearing gun shots and went to school to find billet holes in the walls and shells on the grounds. By the spring of 1979 the revolution was full strength and the shah had left the country. At this point we realized as Christians that Iran would no longer be a safe place to be so in June of 1979 we left Iran for the US with a four year visa. And the rest as they say is history. Forty years later we still live in the US but yet Iran’s unemployment is thousands of times worse then before the revolution and on top of that they have a huge drug and alcohol problem. Revolutions are suppose to being better lives for the citizens. In this case it made life worse for everyone except the few elite Muslims.

Very misleading points at several places. Mossadegh was not a member of any communist parties. He was elected democratically and was overthrown by a coup which according to folklore was conducted by US and UK. If you think it is otherwise can you please send more references and clarifications?

So odd you didn't mention the cia's involvement. They payed a massive role. And then how dumb was it for the united states to get rid of Iran's worst enemy, Saddam Hussein?Leaving Iran to do as it wishes in the middle east.

What All you non Iranians (at least) know of our history, is what CIA, USSR, MI6 and your governments WANT you to believe. Shah was not a puppet and nor a Tyrant. Otherwise he could have easily remained on power. It is very clear that you don’t know anything about Carter and the west supporting Khomeini both financially and politically long before any unrest. The 1953 coap story is another CIA Attempt of rewriting history to Keep the wounds fresh and divide the public and rule over them. There are somethings which you would only understand if you have Experienced them. I was anti Shah for over 50 years (due to the Islamist and Marxist Propaganda), until i reviewed everythings i had read and experienced during my life and i could accept that even though Shah had made some mistakes (believing in Islam was one of his biggest mistakes, ordering military to tolerate all the bs was another mistake of his and now you hear “Shah killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians” which is another propaganda made up by those who wanted to destroy Iran (British Petrolium, American oil industry, CIA, MI6). Again you didn’t mention anything about the Real reasons behind the “revolution”, like Shah deciding to sell our oil by our price instead of the BP and the western industry or The plans of Shah to industrialize Iran and the economic growth of above 10+ for some years until the “revolution”, and some other reasons. Shah was at least 50 years ahead of us Iranians. When he gave Iranian women the right to vote in 1963, some of the west European countries haddn’t given their women that right yet. Dictators usually keep all the rights for themselves. he made all companies to give shares to their workers, he took off the aggricultural fields from big feodals and shared it between farmers who until then had always worked for a boss. He sent only 50 to 100 thousands of students to US fully supported by Iranian government. There were also tens of thousands of Iranian students in Europe at the same time and again fully supported by Iranian government. Shah and his father were the best things that happened to Iran in the last 1400 years. If it weren’t for Reza Shah (his father), then Iranian women could have remained under hijab forever but now 40 years after Islamic regime has the power, they haven’t been able to make Iranian women to go fully under hijab and you see how Iranian women look or act. In the time of Shah we had women teaching even in Universities, we had women lawyers, judge, minister and almost all the other jobs. If you ask Iranians (even those who are born after 1979), about their favorite government and time, you would hear that most people if not all of them want to live in pre 1979 Iran.

Iran in a nutshell: it´s a shithole because of islam. Women arre beaten and stoned to death on a regular basis because of a filthy book called the koran. Gays get hanged in a show of force, when in reality there are more active homosexuals than all the u.s. states combined. They separate men and women and when iranian men get horny, anything is game. When I lived there I suffered more passes at me than in all the places I´ve lived in the world combined. It caused me serious emotional distress to be around so many queers. That is the Iran know. Your views are shallow and without foundation. Iran is a queer country full of sexaholic degenerates just like Muhammad himself.

You Westerners will never be happy until you screw with countries that have nothing to do with you and you'll NEVER EVER get the culture, history and political struggles of those places but GOD forbid you should shut up and listen to the natives.

12:46 Yes we execute rapists, murderers, spies and so on, recently national TV said they want to execute some people who defalcated too much money from banks… The green revolution began when someone said they cheated. No one actually wanted to do anything.About democracy, we have it here! Selected people in Majles even can change the president if they all vote. People chose people in Majles, People chose the president…

Well there are enough official documents published under the freedom information act to show that Mossadegh was overthrown by a coalition of the CIA, MI6 and the Shah, so why be so vague about it? Mossadegh had no intentions of eradicating the clergy, the nationalization of Irans oil just meant that the UK and the US couldn't exploit it anymore, hence operation Ajax to overthrow Mossadegh. This coup paved the way for the Shah and every consecutive fundamentalist movement.